Cloward and ohlin full evaluation

Cloward and Ohlin

                Evaluation

                NEGATIVES

Ignore crimes of the wealthy

Too deterministic & over-predicts the extent of working class crime.

Just like Merton and Cohen they ignore the wider power structure; including who makes and enforces the law.

Viewed as a reactive theory and this means that they explain deviant subcultures as forming a reaction to the failure to achieve mainstream goals and therefore have been criticised for this belief.

POSITIVES

They provide an explanation for different types of working –class deviance; in terms of different subcultures. 

Marxist subcultural theory

Working class boys join gangs to form a resistance…